1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for coupling online and Internet services.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A significant application field of the Internet technique today is the electronic mail operation (e-mail). For this purpose, for example, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is employed. It is based on the TCP/IP protocol and consequently is continuously applicable in the public Internet, as well as also in most Local Area Networks (LAN).
This e-mail service is also made available for example to most customers of so-called online services (for example T-online, AOL, etc.). Internet Access Providers (IAPs) as well as Internet Service Providers (ISP), who have at their disposal their own service offers, make available such services. All of these service providers make possible for customers, who are connected across telecommunication networks, access to the Internet and, if necessary, make available IP-based services. In the following these service offers are collectively referred to as ISP.
To some extent telecommunication network operators also offer IP-based services as well as the transition to the Internet. This takes place, for example, in the GSM mobile radio network by means of WAP platform (Wireless Application Protocol). Such services are accessible to internal customers but not to Internet customers.
In addition, there are so-called freemail providers in the Internet (cf. freemail Anbieter im Test, in Tomorrow, Edition 7/2000). These providers also make e-mail services and other services available. In contrast to online services and IAPs (ISPs), they do not have at their disposal dial-up nodes to telecommunication networks but rather make available host computers with Internet connection in the Internet. Accordingly, they can be contacted by customers in a second step only after they have already been switched through to the Internet via an ISP, for example. Such freemail applications in the Internet are financed most often through advertisement revenues and are free of charge to the user, while the ISP, as a rule, concludes a contract with his customers and levies charges accordingly.
Customers of an e-mail service always have a so-called account. This is a protected access to their own mail stored on the server. The advantage of the ISPs compared to the freemail provider consists most often in the comfortable and rapid access type, in appropriately protected accesses and in less advertisement.
Freemail accesses are most often protected by user identification (name) and by a simple password. The danger of misuse is here relatively great. Once a connection has been established, the data transfer is most often protected through additional security protocols, for example Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). The great advantage of the freemails comprises that these services are accessible from every Internet connection worldwide, while ISP services, as a rule, are only accessible from the home PC, since the access parameters (telephone connection) are used as a security criterion in the access procedure.
A mobile customer has here various restrictions. While the capability is given of using these parameters in other PCs also, however, it fails most often because the foreign PCs often cannot be configured appropriately. For example PC work places in business networks comprise as a rule server-based operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows NT or UNIX and cannot be individually configured by the user.
The mobile ISP customer consequently has considerable disadvantages when using his ISP e-mail account. The disadvantages become greater if the e-mail provider offers not only mail services but rather an expanded offer for example Unified Messaging, etc. (cf. Unified Messaging Anbieter im Vergleich, in Tomorrow, edition 7/2000). In this case extensive services for the ISP customer are omitted. For that reason increasingly more ISP customers are switching to freemail providers in order to be able to receive at least their e-mail everywhere.